


Lost Balance

by toofastandtoofurious



Series: Flutzing Through Romance [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Booker's grief of being dumped, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Ice Dancer!Booker, Ice Dancer!Nile, Ice Skating, M/M, Multi, Other, Platonic Relationships, figure skating AU, i'm aiming for, not a big fan of book of nile but it can be read romantically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27860713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toofastandtoofurious/pseuds/toofastandtoofurious
Summary: Lykon sits him down in the living room with a cup of tea, just how Booker likes it. His favorite mug, too. Booker knows Lykon and knows when something is coming. He also knows this expression, brown, unbearably gentle eyes looking right at him, and he has to brace for whatever it is that Lykon has to say. He exhales, one-two-three. One-two-three. One-two-“Hey,” - he croaks. It felt painful, probably sounded pathetic, too. Booker clears his throat once, twice, three times, until his throat clears out. “Hey, so...are you here to tell me I’m out of the group?”Lykon sighs.“No. No, Booker, you’re not out unless you want to be. Do you want to be done with the sport, though? Do you want to retire, for real? I don’t think it’s your time to go yet, you have plenty of potential and I have something you might be interested in, but none of it will matter if you say you’re really, truly done, or want a year off, or whatever it is that you want. Be honest, Book.”
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Lykon, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Booker | Sebastien le Livre's Wife, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, mentioned
Series: Flutzing Through Romance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018120
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Lost Balance

**Author's Note:**

> It's Flutzing Through Romance 2: Electric Boogaloo, "how To Grieve your Relationship In 5 Easy Steps" or "I just really love ice dance, okay?". Also, punctuation is...not my strongest suit.

When Annabelle called quits both on the sport and on him, Booker felt like his world came crushing down. They were supposed to see it through together, go to the Olympics again together, retire and have children, have _a life,_ but she decided she had enough of this. Of him. Something snapped in her, she explained, she was tired, and he still loved her, loved her so fiercely, but couldn’t find the strength to argue. So she said goodbye to Lykon, packed all her things, and drove away, leaving Booker dealing with the fallout and the press, their parents, and his fucking future alone in their Montreal apartment. His mom has already informed him that Belle will stay with her parents in Paris for a time, before she decides what to do anyway. She hasn’t told him anything yet, and he tried to call, he really did, drunk and sad, and mourning. He misses his wife, he misses his best friend, he misses being on the ice with her and then coming back home, all talk of skating forbidden, and just being people in love. It’s choking him.

Joe, Nicky, and, surprisingly, Lykon break into his apartment a week into his sabbatical, or what he calls such – they would probably disagree and call it a mental breakdown, and they probably would be right. Upon seeing him, Joe wrinkles his nose and insists that he simply must have a shower. There isn’t anything in the world Booker wouldn’t do if Joe insisted on it, so he stands under the spray of hot water and actually feels better. He contemplates on whether he should shave and then deems it too much work, but still. It’s something. The step in the right direction or whatever. 

As Booker paddles back to his friends, he can hear the opening and closing of the cabinet doors in the kitchen, the sound of jar lids being unscrewed and clanking of glass, all somehow far away. He’s maybe a little dizzy, definitely still hungover, but warm. Floaty.

Lykon  sits him down in the living room  with  a cup of tea, just how Booker like s it. His favorite mug, too.  Booker knows Lykon and knows when something is coming. He also knows this expression, brown,  unbearably gentle eyes looking right at him, and he has to brace for whatever it is that Lykon has to say. He exhale s , one-two-three.  One-two-three. One-two-

“Hey,” - he croaks. It felt painful, probably sounded pathetic, too. Booker clears his throat once, twice, three times, until his throat clears out. “Hey, so...are you here to tell me I’m out of the group?”

It wouldn’t be surprising, really. Booker’s approaching 28, without a partner, a Frenchman on the Canadian soil, and not the most talented skater to begin with. European champions don’t really count when you can’t get the Olympic gold, do they? Since Andy and Quynh moved to Montreal, Lykon’s had a surge of applications for his team, so there are better skaters breathing down Booker’s neck. Booker doesn’t say it out loud but it’s the kind of conversation they’ve had before. Lykon sighs.

“No. No, Booker, you’re not out unless you want to be.” - something uncoils in Booker’s chest and breathing is a little easier. Lykon isn’t here to throw him out, Lykon wouldn’t do that to him. Booker leans forward and takes a small sip of his tea, clutching the mug with more force than it requires. - “Do you want to be done with the sport, though? Do you want to retire, for real? _I_ don’t think it’s your time to go yet, you have plenty of potential and I have something you might be interested in, but none of it will matter if you say you’re really, truly done, or want a year off, or whatever it is that you want. Be honest, Book.”

“ _I have something you might be interested in”_ , damn it. Lykon knows full well that he can’t just casually drop this, like a carrot on a stick, and expect Booker to close the door on skating, his ambitions always getting the best of him, but he forces himself to think this through before demanding the details from his coach. His friend, really. Does he want to _go_? He does the maths. The Olympics are next season, and it’s unlikely he’ll go unless his partner is a miraculous fit – and even then, it takes a ton of fucking time to just get used to moving together, so he wouldn’t bet on it. He wants to say he remembers how much time it took for Belle and him to really click together, but the thing is, he can’t. They were children then, and who knows how two fully formed adults get used to each other. The Olympics after that, though...he will be thirty-three, and that’s more than doable. He’ll have five seasons to get it right. _He’ll have five seasons._

The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he’s making plans. He’s making fucking plans, in his dirty living room,  sitting in his creaky armchair he’d bought long before Annabelle and him even got married, as his coach mysteriously smiles at him like he knows something Booker is oblivious to, as his best friends are cleaning out his kitchen if he is to judge from the sound of it. He’s making plans, damn it. He lets out a disbelieving laugh, feels his voice break at least three times and hit a pitch higher than he ever would another human hear, but... yeah, fuck it. He’s making plans for the next five seasons and he doesn’t even have a partner, and Lykon starts clapping before Booker even says it.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, brother, I’m not going anywhere. I’m in, okay? What do you have for me?”

He hears Nicky and Joe whoop in the kitchen and Lykon looks so smug and all-knowing that Booker wants to crush him in a hug. The flat somehow feels warmer.

“So, I might have asked around behind your back and we have three applications for a test skate with you already. Are you gonna clean up nice for Monday and get back on the ice?”

***

The first test skate is a failure.  His potential partner, Ashley, is a truly lovely lady, 22 years of age, all beautiful lines and held positions...when she’s on the ice alone. Together, they clash height-wise so bad that Quynh who insisted on coming as the resident choreographer, stops the skate. 

“Look, guys,” - she speaks in a soft and gentle voice that’s not like her at all and looks at Ashley like she’s a baby rabbit. - “all positions we’ve tried today just didn’t work out, you two have a very different kind of...movement, you know?” It means that Booker looks like a hockey player and she looks like she was forced to dance with him. Bad combo.

Lykon nods and adds, “We could potentially try looking for what might work but to be honest, it would be better if you tried to find different partners. I’m not certain we can find something that would actually work for you two as a team. Ash, you might wanna try a test skate with Peter Zebrowski, though,  I’ve heard through the grapewine that Martha is retiring and he’s available.”

Booker whistles. He ’s heard of it but no official announcement has been made yet; the girl must be really promising for Lykon to point her in that direction, which is what he tells him as they are left alone at the rink. Lykon  just shrugs and  smiles like he holds all the secrets of the universe. 

***

The second test skate goes better.  It’s  _promising_ .  Sara is Italian, tall and slender, with a wicked sense of humor and skating skills to die for. Her own partner retired earlier that year and she was far from done. They competed against each other before, so Booker knows how she moves, and years of being friends with Nicky,  speaking Italian  more often than not, lead to them trading jokes back and forth easily. When Quynh comes to their training session, she shows them a lift and they hit it effortlessly. Quynh laughs and Lykon claps for them as Sara exits the lift gracefully and they stop for a bow. 

They fall into a routine. After their separate work outs, they hit the ice and Lykon tortures them with as much of his attention to them as he can manage with a growing group. They talk each other into trying new moves, they search for new music and send Spotify recommendations back and forth. Off ice, they argue about food and books, and movies,  it’s  _great_ . 

Annabelle calls him, a month after the divorce papers are finalized. It’s a cautious balance between them, still so much grief, so much life left behind, but she still calls. Booker finds that, when she asks if he’s doing okay, he doesn’t lie when he tells her that he’s fine. That it’s fun to be back on the ice. She asks about Sara, he asks her about her plans and something stabilizes between them; maybe they won’t lose each other  in the midst of this heartbreak after all.

Two weeks in to their training , Sara comes with bad news: she’s out. Apparently, the Italian federation offered to fund her training as long as her partner is also Italian or she stays in Italy.  Booker knows  it was too good of an offer to refuse. “It would also mess with my standing there, but I’m sure you know that,” she tells Booker on her last day in Montreal .  He does and he hugs her as tightly as he can. 

That night, their whole group goes out to properly say goodbye to her. Sara ends up dancing tango with Nicky to  everyone’s hollering , Joe being the loudest, Booker drinks, but not too much, dances until his feet hurt, and when he finally comes home past 4am, he catches himself smiling in the mirror.

When he gets a message from Sara a day later, he doesn’t expect to see  a photo of the bright blue sea. A month later he gets a package full to the brim with Italian snacks that only one person could realistically send. He can’t wait to compete against her again.

***

When Lykon tells Booker his next skate is with an American, he groans. “Are we friends, Lykon, are we really friends if you’re subjecting me to this?”. Lykon just laughs as usual. “Oh, Book, I can’t hear you through your Frenchness,  hon hon le baguette, can’t hear you at all! I’ll let you know, Nile is amazing, and if you so much as look at her wrong, I’ll personally fight you.” 

Nile Freeman is an  American who for some reason was allowed to fly to Montreal to  _hypothetically_ represent France fairly easily.  When Booker asks Lykon about it, he all but spits.

“Americans don’t know what they’re letting go of, man. They’re so focused on their current podium that they don’t see the promise in her, they’ve done all they could to break her previous team cause the dude was so, I don’t know, charming or whatever – read: white, that they’re ready to let her go wherever she wants to, they don’t consider it a loss for the fed. I promise you, Book, she’s incredible. She has some family in Marseille, so it should be relatively easy for her to get the citizenship. But again, Book, she’s a gem. A gem, I’m telling you.”

Apparently, that sentiment is shared by Andy who’s seen the girl before. “Book, believe me when I say it, she’s the shit. If you two work out, you gotta hold on to her and make sure she never leaves.”

Andy is always serious with this stuff, but she looks downright  _murderous_ just from the thought of Booker fucking up this  _hypothetical_ partnership, so he’s maybe a little nervous as he drives to the rink.  M aybe  there is a lot at stake. He tidied up his beard,  he’s wearing slightly nicer training gear.

Booker sees Nile before she even steps onto the ice. Orange sweater, looking even brighter in contrast with her black skin, hair in tight braids, a duffle bag across her shoulder. She moves with purpose,  steady,  with a spring in her step , and Booker can’t help being drawn to it. 

Lykon tells her something and claps her on her shoulder before she skates to him with a bright smile that he feels himself return. 

“Sebastien, hi! I’m Nile, pleasure to meet you.” - she extends her hand for him to shake, and her grip is firm, sure. Not too bad for an American, not too bad for a new kid. 

“Hi...uh, hi, Nile. Everybody calls me Booker, so you might as well.” - Booker stumbles through English words that never want to sit right on his tongue, rubs his neck, and wishes he was less awkward when meeting people, but alas, he is not Joe.

She looks at him curiously and he can tell what’s gonna happen before she asks him, “Why Booker? Big fan of reading?”

“Well, le Livre means “book” in French, and Joe thought it was really funny. It stuck, I guess. As good of a nickname as one can hope for.”

“Ah, I see, clever! Well, _Booker”_ – she switches to French and wiggles her eyebrows - “ _let’s see how we do, shall we?_ ” 

B ooker doesn’t know what to say, left completely speechless, but his face must be doing something that pleases her. She laughs and he feels like he wants to join her, too.

Lykon comes to the border with Quynh and from then it’s  _on_ . They practice steps, holds, and turns, and Booker feels that her energy matches his  so well  he buzzes with it . They both carve into the ice, knees bent deep, and catch each other on time for the next turn, the next step, switch between holds so effortlessly that by the end of their designated time, Booker knows Lykon and Andy were right. She’s the shit. He wants this partnership to work.  No, he needs it to work.

They skate to Lykon and Quynh slightly breathless but smiling. Nile reaches to him with her fist and he bumps it without thinking. Booker feels giddy, like something has finally clicked for him, and when Nile gets her French citizenship after months and months of waiting, when she shrieks with laughter as Nicky and Joe jump from the corner to tackle her with hugs and kisses, he feels for the first time in years that maybe there are more good things to come.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, hmu on tumblr under the same name if you wanna yell about skating more. I have more ideas for this AU so it's far from over!


End file.
